Orthopaedics Today Europe Commentary

At the recent 18th Annual EFORT Congress in Vienna, the interest in sessions about postoperative infection, especially its treatment, was noticeable. It seems to be a key topic for many orthopaedic surgeons. Certainly, we have patients with postoperative infections and we want to do our best to initially prevent it from happening, which is next to doing our best to eradicate it.

Looking back at the 18th EFORT Congress that ended a few days ago, I have a great feeling because it was well-attended with more than 6,000 congress participants and included excellent educational sessions on all 3 days of the congress.

In a little more than 2 weeks, EFORT will again host its annual congress, its 18th such meeting, which will be held in Vienna 31 May to 2 June. In 15 rooms running in parallel, a total of 200 sessions will be held from early morning to late afternoon during 3 days and provide a total of 18.5 hours of education. The EFORT Congress has become the orthopaedic congress of the year in Europe and covers all aspects of each corner in the orthopaedic and traumatology fields, including specialty sessions with assistance from major European specialty societies. Also after receiving more than 3,400 free papers, posters and case abstracts, 633 papers have been evaluated and selected for 72 free paper sessions. There is no other place in the European orthopaedic community in which such a high number of free papers are accepted, giving several young European orthopaedic surgeons the opportunity to present their research for approximately 6,000 congress participants.

All prognoses and perspectives instruct us that the number of total hip and knee replacements will increase significantly in coming decades, mainly due to the increasing percentage of senior patients, longer life expectancies and increasing demand to be active in the senior years.

During the last decade, accelerated patient programs have been introduced worldwide for more orthopaedic procedures. Total hip and knee replacement are good examples of how changes in pain treatment strategies, concepts on how and when to mobilize patients after surgery and the impact of detailed preoperative information given to patients and their relatives have dramatically decreased the length of in-hospital stays to an average of 1 day to 2 days in most Scandinavian orthopaedic departments. This has significantly reduced or even removed waiting times for surgery after the visit to the outpatient clinic, increased productivity for most clinics and, therefore, reduced the overall costs to society.

In the Cover Story of this issue of Orthopaedics Today Europe, experts across Europe detail their clinical and scientific experiences with heterotopic ossification that develop after surgical and non-surgical events in patients.

The European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology consists of more than 40 European National Societies, several of which are based in countries in Eastern Europe.

For decades, periprosthetic joint infection has been focused on extensively at orthopaedic conferences, congresses and courses. However, interest in this topic has escalated during the last decade. That is good news because greater attention has always been needed to paid to periprosthetic joint infections by orthopaedic surgeons in practice and during their training.

The vote in favor of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union was a shock to me.

It has been more than 4 years since the problems with metal-on-metal hip arthroplasty bearings first came to light and the subsequent recalls began. Orthopaedic surgeons worldwide have pondered the lessons learned from this catastrophe and now many are wondering when, and if, the use of metal-on-metal articulations can be resumed.